Lifeboat Foundation

Well, that’s cool.

According to recent Occupational Safety and Health Administration data, workers at Amazon fulfillment centers were seriously injured about twice as often as employees in other warehouses. To improve workplace safety, Amazon has been increasing its investment in robotic helpers to reduce injuries among its employees. With access granted for the first time ever, “Sunday Morning” correspondent David Pogue visited the company’s secret technology facility near Seattle to observe some of the most advanced warehouse robots yet developed, and to experience how high-tech tools are being used to aid human workers.

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Continue reading “Meet Amazon’s robots” »

An outstanding idea, because for one there has been a video/ TV show/ movie, etc… showing every conceivable action a human can do; and secondly the AI could watch all of these at super high speeds.

Predicting what someone is about to do next based on their body language comes naturally to humans but not so for computers. When we meet another person, they might greet us with a hello, handshake, or even a fist bump. We may not know which gesture will be used, but we can read the situation and respond appropriately.

In a new study, Columbia Engineering researchers unveil a computer vision technique for giving machines a more intuitive sense for what will happen next by leveraging higher-level associations between people, animals, and objects.

Continue reading “AI learns to predict human behavior from videos” »

In 2016, researchers at the Salk Institute showed that activating certain genes associated with embryonic development could “reprogram” the age of cells and boost the age of mice. Last year, they even managed to use the process to restore vision in old mice.

But the natural “reprogramming” described in the new Harvard study is unlikely to be exactly the same and may be far more comprehensive as it resets cellular age to ground zero, rather than simply reversing it by a few years.

Now that they know when this process happens, the researchers hope they can discover what the actual mechanism is, how similar it is to artificial cellular programming, and whether it can be induced in normal adult cells to rejuvenate them. That’s likely to be a long road, but could eventually lead to major breakthroughs in longevity science.

Part of the problem mirrors the rise of automation in any other industry — performers told Input that they’re nervous that game studios might try to replace them with sophisticated algorithms in order to save a few bucks. But the game modder’s decision also raises questions about the agency that performers have over their own voices, as well as the artistry involved in bringing characters to life.

“If this is true, this is just heartbreaking,” video game voice actor Jay Britton tweeted about the mod. “Yes, AI might be able to replace things but should it? We literally get to decide. Replacing actors with AI is not only a legal minefield but an utterly soulless choice.”

“Why not remove all human creativity from games and use AI…” he added.

If microbes live in the Venusian skies, they must be able to survive with far less water than any known life found on Earth.

If there are microbes living in the Venusian skies, they have evolved to survive with far less water than any known life on Earth, a new study suggests.

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Continue reading “This Powerful Tidal Turbine Will Power 2,000 Homes in the UK” »

Material scientists have developed a fast method for producing epsilon iron oxide and demonstrated its promise for next-generation communications devices. Its outstanding magnetic properties make it one of the most coveted materials, such as for the upcoming 6G generation of communication devices and for durable magnetic recording. The work was published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry C, a journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Iron oxide (III) is one of the most widespread oxides on Earth. It is mostly found as the mineral hematite (or alpha iron oxide, α-Fe₂O₃). Another stable and common modification is maghemite (or gamma modification, γ-Fe₂O₃). The former is widely used in industry as a red pigment, and the latter as a magnetic recording medium. The two modifications differ not only in crystalline structure (alpha-iron oxide has hexagonal syngony and gamma-iron oxide has cubic syngony) but also in magnetic properties.

In addition to these forms of iron oxide (III), there are more exotic modifications such as epsilon-, beta-, zeta-, and even glassy. The most attractive phase is epsilon iron oxide, ε-Fe₂O₃. This modification has an extremely high coercive force (the ability of the material to resist an external magnetic field). The strength reaches 20 kOe at room temperature, which is comparable to the parameters of magnets based on expensive rare-earth elements. Furthermore, the material absorbs electromagnetic radiation in the sub-terahertz frequency range (100−300 GHz) through the effect of natural ferromagnetic resonance. The frequency of such resonance is one of the criteria for the use of materials in wireless communications devices—the 4G standard uses megahertz and 5G uses tens of gigahertz. There are plans to use the sub-terahertz range as a working range in the sixth generation (6G) wireless technology, which is being prepared for active introduction in our lives from the early 2030s.

Scientists develop the first CRISPR-Cas9-based gene drive in plants which may breed crops better able to withstand drought and disease.

Scientists achieved a record level of visual detail with an imaging technique that could help develop future electronics and better batteries.